My eyes do not want to open. They are putting up a good fight but I am going to have to force them to give in and comply. Something is not right. I can feel it. Maybe if I see where I am I’ll feel
better. Then again, maybe I won’t.

It’s still a struggle but I force my lids apart from each other. A white glare temporarily blinds me but a couple of blinks later my eyes begin to adjust. I don’t think that I have ever seen the
sun appear so.....white before. It looks as though all the yellow and orange hues usually present have been bleached to a starkness that I’ve only seen with the moon before.

Maybe that is the answer. Perhaps I have missed the remainder of the day, only to open my eyes to a night sky. It is too light for night time though. The sky is grey. There is not a trace of blue
or white anywhere to be seen. There is no rain; there is no mist. The greyness I took to be clouds seems not to be that at all unless the whole of the sky is being veiled by one big uniform mass.
Why is the sky grey?

The feeling starts to return to my fingers. I can feel some sort of coarse grains underneath them. Once that awareness begins to form I can feel it everywhere. Underneath my neck, in my hair and
against my scalp; it almost feels like I am laying on a pile of grit.

My head does not want to turn to the side. Have I had some sort of accident? Is that why my body is so resistant to my commands? Thinking is hard, I don’t even know who I am. I cannot recall
anything traumatic happening, but then I have no memories at all.

Okay. My neck finally gives in to my demands and lets me move my head to the side. It certainly looks like grit or gravel. It is harsh and coarse. And grey! Varying shades of grey all around me.
Maybe I have suddenly become colour-blind! But that offers no explanation of why I should find myself flat on my back on a pile of gravel with no idea how I got here. And where is ‘here’ anyway?

Taking it slowly I turn my head to the opposite direction. More grey grit as far as I can see. And it doesn’t seem to be a heap at all. From what I can tell from my prone position the ground that I
am laying on is flat. I must be on a gravel beach somewhere. But I do remember something about myself; I do not live anywhere near the sea.

At the thought of the sea I suddenly become aware of a distant noise. Now I’ve noticed it the sound seems to become louder, more pronounced. It is the sound of waves hitting the beach, none too
gently either. Try as I might, I cannot get even a glimpse of this sea from my present position. I’m going to have to get myself up somehow.

My body has other ideas. It does not seem to want to give up the support beneath me. My head, my back, my legs – they all tell me ‘no’, but my brain is saying ‘move’ and it doesn’t intend to give
up. I give up thinking of the struggle for a while, let them fight with each other and sort it out between them.

My brain must have had the last word as the next thing I am aware of is being on my very unsteady legs. Balancing was never quite so hard to do before. My feet are sinking into the gravel making it
even harder to remain on them. I take a step forward, then another. It is easier to be moving than to be still.

And then I see it, a splash of colour before me. It is not a colour that I am expecting to see though. I anticipated a blue-green, or even more grey. What I see is a mix of purples and reds, with
pink spume. It looks violent, threatening, unnatural. There is something very wrong with the picture that is before me.

And then I see the bodies. They are spread all over the gravel; before me, beside me, to my left and to my right. Hundreds and hundreds of dead birds and fish are everywhere. I must have been
walking through them, on them.....How could I not have noticed?

I feel sick. I have to get out of here now. But where can I go? It looks the same in all directions apart from the sea itself and there is no way I am planning on getting any nearer to that. I turn
away from it, move in the opposite direction. At first I can move no faster than a speedy walk but then I seem to manage a slow jog. The faster I go the less I sink into the putrid mass beneath my
feet.

I stop. It’s not possible, is it? There, in front of me, is that broiling sea. And more of it to my left and to my right. It is closing in on me from all directions, pushing piles of these rotting
bodies towards me. I am now up to my ankles in them and the stench is horrendous. I am on some sort of island of death and there is no way for me to escape.

I cannot think. Panic, and the adrenalin rush that would accompany it, has abandoned me. There is absolutely nothing that I can do! I throw back my head and howl at the sky, then drop to my knees
as the world goes black.

I sit bolt upright. Where am I?

At home, in bed! A nightmare and nothing more. My hands are shaking as I reach out to pick up the glass of water beside my bed. But where is that horrible smell coming from? And why are my clothes
all wet?

What a story. It's just as the title suggests...very surreal. And the ending makes me imagine what happens afterwards. Does the dream keep repeating itself.? Is this death or reality or a mixture of both? Because not everythings black and white, a lot of things are a curious grey...I like it :)

AuthorReply

Comment | 35 words

Fri, August 12th, 2016 11:01am

You know, I don't really know whether it was a dream or not! I wanted to leave it open to interpretation......like you said, a curious grey!!!
Thanks so much for the read and comment!